She’d longed for Campbell.
And why shouldn’t she? Arran’s cousin was as witty and warm as bloody Beau Brummell himself. Arran growled.
Are you certain your rage in part today wasn’t a product of Lucy’s appreciation and regard for your bloody cousin?the devil in his head whispered.
“What your sister meant to say…” The countess attempted to explain away the girls’ rudeness. “Is we are very happy you—”
He didn’t give two shites.
“Why the hell is he here?” Arran snapped, bringing the table conversation still taking place to a stop.
Campbell appeared the last to realize he was the someone whose presence was being questioned.
“Thank you for your worry, cousin.” Campbell flashed a warm smile. “It is much appreciated.”
Arran fisted his hands at his sides.“…He always visited…he made me smile…”The only worry Arran had was for his unholy, animal-like urge to take the other man apart.
Needing to move or else kill, Arran stomped over to the festive crimson and emerald set table.I know a pair of eyes green like the Scottish hills.Arran snatched the chair out and slammed himself into it.
“Arran,” his mother said gently, yanking his stare her way. “Your concern is warranted, however, the doctor believes Campbell well enough to join us for the night.”
“I say.” A confounded Oleander scratched his sandy blond hair. “He doesn’tappearworried.”
His unblinking gaze locked on a single vacant chair.
Arran didn’t tolerate deceivers. A person who lied would never find a place amidst the McQuoids. That is precisely what Lucy had done. She’d lied. She’d let him bare his blackened soul. She’d coaxed him back to the living. And for it, he’d sent her packing.
Strange how even that didn’t feel like any sort of consolation.
As Arran seated himself, his gaze continued creeping just as it had that morning towards where Lucy sat. Or where she’d sat.
He sucked in a ragged breath.
She’s gone. Remember, you sent her packing as she deserves…
Agony throbbed at the top of Arran’s ribcage. She’d fit as easily into the McQuoid family as if she’d been born to their table.
Not the damned family…just acknowledge the whole of it.
She’d fit like the other side of his soul.
“…I don’t like you this way, Arran…”
And through his fury-filled diatribe, she’d faced him, tears falling, eyes blazing, defiantly.
“…It was a misunderstanding…A lie of omission…Hate me for my mistakes and for wronging you, but I will not let you repaint the entire situation as some nefarious plot I constructed. It wasn’t…”
God, she’d been breathtaking in her defiance, and he’d been brutal in his barbarism.
“…Madam, you are a damned stranger to me. I do not care what you like or don’t like about me or bloody anything…”
My God, how easily he’d flung those hateful words at her grief-ravaged face. A heaviness settled in Arran’s sternum, a bloody, excruciating weight to crush a man—if he was lucky.
“…Are you talking to yourself again, or openly begging me, Lucy…?”
The vise around Arran’s chest cinched tighter.
The observant footman aside Arran’s chair came forth and poured Arran a sherry.
